WHEN BOMBS DON'T WORK THEN BATTLE FOR HEARTS AND MINDS

"Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror,'' Rumsfeld wrote. ''Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?''

Rumsfeld's memo raises the possibility of creating ''a private foundation to entice radical madrassas to a more moderate course'' and questions how to block the funding of the extremist schools.

Rumsfeld also suggested the United States may need to do more to ''stop the next generation of terrorists.''

''The U.S. is putting relatively little effort into a long-range plan, but we are putting a great deal of effort into trying to stop terrorists,'' Rumsfeld wrote. ''The cost-benefit ratio is against us! Our cost is billions against the terrorists' costs of millions.'' Reuters

Is this not exactly what many were saying before the war on Iraq? This stupid war was supposed to stop the radical madrassas and clerics from recruiting and training terrorists. Bomb and intimidate them into submission. It has accomplished, as many predicted, the opposite. Now Rumsfield wants to bribe them with money. "Duh," to an exponential power. It is the historical movement against terrorism that must be defeated. This requires the ability to learn from history, humility and wisdom in battle... ears to hear-- which apparently our political leadership lacks. "The wise warrior (indeed) is greater than the strong warrior." Where is the wise warrior?

THE WAR ON TERRORISM IS NOT FINALLY ABOUT TERRORISM
It is about ourselves too. Wisdom is the fruit of the courage to face ourselves and our world in spite of resistance. It cannot be obtained with money or military power alone. It involves the arduous, difficult journey, the battle, the war of seeking truth. This is the spiritual problem and challenge of our time. We try all the other (material) ways before drawing from the well of our spiritual inheritance. The biblical fundamentalist tradition is not up to it. It cannot face its own complicity in the problems and injustice of the world. What does it really mean to love God (ultimate truth and goodness) and our neighbors as ourselves? I wish I knew. "Not by might or effort alone says the LORD, but by my Spirit."